Studio » Amy O'Neill

Lynda Barry, George Harrison, and Church.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the role of the artist-as-observer. If we as artists had to boil down our purpose to one role, it’s that of an observer. We observe a lot of things: cultural trends, regional beliefs, popular aspirations, etc. To observe means to take one step out of bounds and look at things. To be an artist is to be a mirror, of sorts, to some aspect or element of those things. In a way I’m re-visiting some theories I studied in graduate school in Jonathan Crary’s Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century. It’s nice when school texts come back into your life in comforting, constructive ways. Here’s three things that have been on my mind regarding making art and thinking about art:

1. My friend Dan Kois wrote a wonderful profile of Lynda Barry in this week’s New York Times Magazine. Barry has made a career out of being the artist’s artist, and has made a micro-career out of teaching writers to be true and good writers. Teaching is hard, but the article deftly illustrates how she does it so well. I have a lot of friends that have taken her workshops, and they have all become devoted parishioners of the Church of Barry.

2. I just watched George Harrison: Living in the Material World on HBO. It’s a mesmerizing documentary. I love The Beatles, but kind of forgot the sort of spiritual journey that Harrison created for himself. He didn’t strive to be perfect; he strove to be aware. The role of the observer came easy to him, even though he was such a public figure. It came easy to him because he knew it was an essential position for him to inhabit. His work was pure and true to himself.

3. Church. We all need a place of meditation and concentration. The first couple years after undergrad, I attempted to have my studio in my house to disastrous effect. I wasn’t disciplined enough, and there was always something to distract me. The laundry wasn’t going to wash itself. The cats needed to someone to throw them a toy. A Law & Order marathon was just about to start. I used anything as an excuse to escape. The white of the canvas is an oppressive force, and I was too green to stand up to it. After years of renting a studio space outside of my house, I moved it back into our home upon moving to Boston, and I haven’t looked back. I don’t know what I would do without it being so close. This creative passenger we harbor needs to have an immediate workspace; otherwise, it will atrophy. It’s our space to make things and to think about things. It is the place where we can be vulnerable and sincere. It’s where we get shit done.

Studio Practice: Making a Print

This afternoon I made a print, and here are the photos I took of the process. I start with a pencil drawing that I then transfer onto the carving surface by rubbing the back of the drawing with a pencil. Then I begin removing the negative space using carving tools and an X-Acto knife. After cleaning the carved surface with water, I print up a blotter page to check the accuracy and sharpness of my image. Once I make a few edits to the stamp, I make the final prints; in this case, I printed the image on blank greeting cards. I also used two other stamps in this process. I used a stamp with my name for the backs of the cards, and another stamp that reads ” Be A Good Citizen,” my current fave phrase. And that’s how you make a print!

I favor this kind of printmaking process because it’s cheap and easy. My drawing skills and carving skills are strong enough to do this rather than doing screen printing or something similar. If I had a printing press, I’d probably do some etchings or engravings. Nevertheless, I really like doing it this way.

Brand New Studio!

The studio’s all clean, things are back in place, and lo and behold, I did a painting today. Stars are aligning indeed. Even Precious (who can be found in both photos) senses that the studio is back in order. She usually perches herself on the corner of my desk while I’m painting, and today was no different. She’s my coal mine canary, that little kitten is. Here’s to feeling good and plenty.

Three feet high and falling

I’m oddly excited by the purge of stuff this flood has forced. Losing art and art supplies makes everything a little easier to let go of, regardless of importance. And I know I’m totally old since I look at this occasion as a chance to give the basement a solid scrub and an organizational re-set.

Today the weather was perfect. 60 degrees, bright clear skies. All the neighbors emerged like housecats, nervous that the coast may not be clear. Throughout the neighborhood, hoses still pumped water, area rugs lay like roadkill. I separated good junk from bad and put all salvageable items curbside, along with a wooden “FREE” sign I fashioned to look like a cartoon cross. I look for any chance to over-engineer.

Our friends Meg and Katherine came over tonight armed with pizza and wine, which always seems to justify a day spent reminiscing over water-soaked concert ticket stubs and moldy sketchbooks. We poked sweet fun over Katherine’s charm-full Southern-ness, and actual fun over “American Idol’s” awfulness. We like Crystal Bowersox because of her sass and talent and wood-colored teeth, and we hate everyone else. Except the gangbanger’s son. We like him. It was Rolling Stones night on “Idol,” and if I were on that show, I would have sung “No Expectations.” Like a BOSS.

So, the basement. No more standing water. We have two fans and two de-humidifiers running, just like they did on the Ark. It’ll take me a few days, but I think I’ll be back to painting by early next week. In your face, rain!

How high’s the water, momma?

I woke up this morning at 7 am to my girlfriend Misia whispering to me, “Babe? I don’t want to freak you out, but the whole basement is flooded. I have to go to jury duty now, but I’ll be home as soon as I can. Oh, and when you’re cleaning it up, make sure not to touch your face after you’ve touched any water, because I don’t want you to get dysentery.” She’s in public health and I love her for that.

Boston received three months of rain in a day and a half. We were one of the lucky houses, in that we only got four inches of rain versus the three feet the house to the north received. Unfortunately, the house adjacent to ours was sold today, which created a responsibility vacuum when it came to the flood cleanup. We ended up pumping out both basements out of necessity. Water knows no property line.

In the early hours of our 14 hour work day, I was feeling good, almost zen-like in my efforts. I thought about currents, about the songs being played on shuffle (the first song of the day was, I shit you not, De La Soul’s “Three Feet High and Rising”), about dry footwear, about water tables. I baled out nearly 200 gallons of water and moved all the soaking wet rugs outside by myself before my dad came over with a second pump, second wet-vac, and gutter extensions. Then Misia came back from jury duty and joined in the efforts. We were all doing pretty well until I discovered two stacks of fifteen years worth of drawings and paintings were ruined. That put me in a bit of a funk. But, we all rallied and kept at it. We were wet and tired and dizzy from looking at wet concrete all day. Then, Kanye’s “Good Life” came on the stereo. Welcome to the good life, indeed. Let’s go on a livin’ spree. Why? ’Cause you know the best things in life ain’t free.

Packing up the studio

Painters aren’t really mobile artists (except for taggers, I guess) but I’ve gotten pretty good at being a traveling craftswoman. Here are most of the supplies I’m bringing with me to Milwaukee. Other supplies, like my sign painter’s paint and thinners and such are holed up in friends’ basements out there. I like working on site. It’s my chance to play Office. You know, waking up, leaving the house, and going to work in a building with other people.

Have a great time watching the Oscars. I love spectacles and enthusiasm. Go Kathryn Bigelow!

Painting for fun and profit

So it took me three days to make five paintings, but that’s okay I guess. I took a picture of all of them so you can get a sense of what I do when I make five paintings. I tend to work on the same one or two images. By doing the same painting, more or less, I can use the same paint I’ve mixed up on the palette. I’m trying to get better about not wasting paint by letting it get dried out, and this is one way to be more economical about my paint. My eyes are too big for my canvas most times. Another reason for painting the same image is that I can try different techniques and approaches to the painting. I could be perfectly happy painting the same thing over and over for days on end. What I lack in cleverness I make up for in volume.

So, that’s that. I won’t be doing any chicken paintings for a week, because I am heading to Milwaukee on Monday to do some murals. I will be taking pictures and writing about my work as I do it, so if you like to read about paint drying as much as I like watching it dry, you’re in for a real treat.

I’m back in the saddle again

So I broke through my painter’s block today. I went out to the beach, put on a headband from Mr. Miyagi, stepped onto a tree stump, and did the crane. And whaddya know? I made a chicken. Paint the fence, sand the floor.

You can see in the first picture that the sketch on the canvas is the second attempt I made. The first one was a big pile of suck, so I erased it and turned the canvas upside down. That makes it a little easier to not repeat the mistakes I made with the first sketch. Artist’s tricks! They’re fun!

The way I’m structuring these chicken paintings is a little different than how I usually construct a painting, but I think that’s because I’m painting from a photograph, and I’m trying to speed up the painting process. (If I get into craft fairs, I have to have inventory to sell.) But you can still see how I block out patterns and strive for some color balance throughout the painting.

The chicken is almost finished at this point, and it’s here that you can really see the difference in the way these paintings are made versus other, longer, paintings. For the most part, I paint the figure and the ground at the same time, but in the case of these chicken paintings, the ground is generally one uniform color. One of the advantages I have found in waiting until the figure is nearly finished to begin painting the ground color is that I can shore up the contours and sharpen up the form of the figure. Economy of paint distribution!

And there you have it! That’s how you make a chicken, in four easy steps. One note on the antlers: I have three racks of antlers in my studio that I use as props. I set them up (or sometimes just hold them) in the same position as the chicken’s head so they look natural. You know, like chickens with antlers look in the wild.

Hooray! I made two of these this afternoon. When I am in a really good groove, I can make up to five a day, but I’m not going to press my luck. Two chickens in one afternoon is going to have to do for today. Now I’m going to eat dinner. Can you guess what we’re having?

Got my painting pants on!

…and then ugh! I’ve got the painter’s block. My plan for the day was to wake up, poke around on the internets, take Penny to the woods, and then paint paint paint ’til the break of five. I finished my drawings for Sara’s blog, I’m done with with the canvas stretching gig, and I had successfully completed every single procrastination errand possible. Got the docket cleared for a painting takeoff, you feel me? Well, apparently I didn’t feel me. Or it. Or anything.

I went down to the studio (in a literal sense, not a euphemistic usage of “went down;” my studio is in the basement) and I cleaned off my palette table of old paint. I gave my brushes a gentle washing and conditioning. I filled my palette cups with medium. I sifted through my collection of chicken photographs, ones I took at a small farm in Wellesley last fall. With this new series of paintings comes the first time I have ever worked from photographic source material. I made a couple preliminary sketches, then I started making under-sketches on the canvas. First one, no dice. Second attempt, nada. Third try, ugh. I suck today. I cannot draw or compose a painting to save my life. I am consumed with equal parts crushing guilt for wasting the day by acting like a no-talent hack, and then for thinking I’m a no-talent hack. This is one of the rings of the creative circle of hell. I know it, I understand it, and that’s why I’m stepping away from the easel to go upstairs and make potato and leek soup. Nourishing. Healthy. Honest. Unlike me, who is menacing. Inappropriate. Unqualified. Ack, feelings.

One thing I did this afternoon was to listen to my “Top 25 Most Played” playlist on my iPod. It’s a weird thing to listen to that list. It’s all kinds of parts of you. On my list, I have soul, singer-songwriter, big band, Appalachian folk, rap, alternative, and jazz standards on there, to name several. As I’m writing this, I’m listening to Liz Phair’s “Shatter,” and she’s singing “I don’t think that I could fly a plane/well enough to tailspin out your name.” Right this second, I feel like I could be singing that to Painting itself. Painting’s kind of like heroin, without all the fun and homelessness.

So tomorrow, we start anew. Fresh heads, clean palettes. Making chickens. With antlers on ‘em.

Today I used a pencil!

So today I had a phone conference with my friend Sara about the images I’m drawing for her dog blog, and I think we came up with something nice (I’m doing the final drawing right after I write this post, so it should be up on her site within the week.) But I think it’s nice to look at all the sketches in one photo, so that’s why I took this photo. I like doing this sort of stuff as much as I like making series’ of paintings, because I get a different kind of pleasure doing assignment work. Sometimes it’s a lot more fun to do “assignments,” rather than come up with stuff on your own. Being creative is hard, yo. What’s funny is that the font we agreed on is the handwriting that I use when I’m imitating Sara’s handwriting. When I do sign painting and the person wants a nice, easy to read font that is pretty yet a bit artsy, I go in my mental Rolodex and use my “Sara Stathas” handwriting. Oh artists, all we do is copy. Each other.

This past summer, I helped my mom organize my grandma’s basement. A lot of the stuff I went through belonged to my grandpa, who was an industrial and mechanical engineer. He did a lot of freelance engineering; in fact, he was hired as a consultant for Pabst to work on the efficiency of their bottle line system (think “Laverne and Shirley.”) I took the majority of his old hand tools, drafting paper, and drawing supplies. Some of them I knew I’d use right away, and some of them I wanted for nostalgic purposes. I took his mechanical pencils, but I never thought I’d use them because they are all much harder leads than I like to use (light pencils are “H” leads, and I use “B” leads.) All of his stuff is in perfect working order and, funny enough, the same brand of pencils that I use today. Anyway, back to drawing. In doing the lettering for Sara’s blog header, I realized that everything gets scanned nowadays and good computers pick up everything, including incidental marks from a pencil. I thought, “Wow, if I only had one of those dumb ultra-light lead pencils.” And I did, in a box, eleven inches from my nose. Dumb pencil…